TEMPERATURE'S RISING

by Donna Sterling

  Callie realized that if she were thinking straight, she wouldn't mind those speculations. Hadn't she prayed that no one would find out about her relationship with Jack? Hadn't she begged him to keep their night together a secret?

  Why, then, did her heart ache at his continued aloofness? As much as she hated to admit it, she'd been longing all day for one of his smiles, or a warm glance. Or a touch.

  She closed her eyes with a strong, sudden desire to feel his touch. To be held in his arms. To stare into his heated, golden-brown eyes and make hard, sweaty love to him.

  Her breath caught in her throat and she forced the image from her mind. She couldn't allow herself to crave him this way. But even as she thought it, she opened her eyes and involuntarily searched the crowd for him.

  She saw him nowhere.

  Frankie danced by with her husband. Robbie shuffled by with his date. Sheriff Gallagher and his daughter two-stepped past her, and unfamiliar couples whirled across the floor.

  The song ended, and a new one began. Although the tempo was fairly lively, the poetic lyrics spoke of a powerful, forever kind of love. She didn't want to listen.

  She turned to leave, but before she could, a broad chest in a crisp white shirt blocked her way. She drew back, breathing in the sudden whiff of a familiar masculine scent that made her heart stand still. Blood drummed in her ears. Her temperature rose.

  A savagely handsome, scarred face filled her vision, and golden-brown eyes captured hers.

  With a nod at the dance floor beside them, Jack opened his arms. "Callie," he said, the intensity of his gaze contradicting his courteous smile, "may I?"

  * * *

  9

  « ^ »

  "No, no, I … I don't dance. I'm not very good at it. I—"

  "What's the matter, Cal?" His arm lightly corralled her, encircling her waist, drawing her closer. "Scared?"

  "Of course not, but—"

  "I dare you." Jack's gaze blazed across her face like a beam of summer heat. "Double dare," he whispered.

  He wasn't playing fair. Her personal sense of pride wouldn't let the challenge go unanswered, as he well knew. Jimbo's face loomed up beside them on the dance floor, watching them with unabashed interest as he and his date danced by. The crowd around them seemed to be watching, too.

  Hesitantly Callie laid her hand on his shoulder and the other into his extended palm. She braced herself, aware of the attention they'd drawn, and the breathless dizziness his nearness had caused, and the heat streaming through her from his touch.

  He allowed none of her stiffness or distance. He pulled her firmly against him and guided her onto the floor, where he held her gaze with a smiling warmth that rushed to her head like fine champagne.

  For the first time in her life, she didn't look down at her feet or concentrate on her partner's moves. She couldn't take her eyes from his, and somehow forgot she was dancing at all. He coaxed her into a rhythm with smooth yet playful grace. Her body soon moved in easy, natural harmony with his.

  He lifted her hand higher and led her into bolder moves, forcing her to smile at unexpected dips and turns. Before long, they were whirling through a maze of other couples, the skirt of her sundress billowing behind her and wrapping around his jean-clad legs. When they'd reached an empty corner, he twirled her out, then under his arm. He even leaned her dramatically backward, and she laughed out loud.

  He pulled her up, caught her to him and held her still against his chest. Her eyes returned to his, and the heat, the intensity, nearly overpowered his smile. "Don't be afraid of doing anything with me, Callie."

  Her heart pounded too high in her throat for her to answer, even to herself, as she succumbed to his golden-hot stare.

  The music changed to a slow, evocative love song. Neither gave a thought to leaving the floor. His arm banded tighter around her, and his hand roamed the length of her back, molding her against him. She closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his shoulder, savoring the familiar hardness and warmth beneath his cotton shirt.

  They did little more than sway. And drink in the feel, the scent, the need. Strain closer together in sensuous gyrations. Hunger for more.

  He angled his face near the side of her jaw and inhaled deeply, as if to breathe in her fragrance and hold it inside of him to better savor it. "God, I've missed you."

  She knew what he meant, although they'd been within sight distance of each other all day. She'd missed him, too. She'd craved him … his touch, his warmth, his attention. A tingle of alarm went through her. She shouldn't be needing him this badly.

  His mouth brushed against her ear, setting off a shower of hot sparks within her. "Meet me on my boat, Callie," he rasped. "We'll go offshore and anchor down for the night."

  Her breath suspended somewhere between her heart and her head. She could spend another night with him! In his arms, in his bed.

  "No one has to know, Cal," he breathed.

  Temptation scalded her insides.

  He drew back and foraged her gaze with blatant hunger. "Slip away as soon as you can. I'll be waiting there, no matter how long—"

  "Excuse me." A cultured, masculine voice interrupted from very close beside them.

  Jack turned his head with a questioning frown.

  Grant Tierney lifted a dark, winged brow above glittering blue eyes. A smile curled his mouth. "May I cut in?"

  Jack stiffened into utter stillness. Callie felt the muscles of his body turn to steel, saw his scarred face freeze into a mask of deadly warning. "No, you may not."

  "I'd say that's up to the lady, wouldn't you?"

  "You're not going to touch her."

  Callie stared at the two men as if she'd been abruptly woken from a dream. She'd been so deeply immersed in her heated communion with Jack that she'd forgotten the rest of the world existed. She wanted nothing more than to wave Grant aside like a pesky mosquito and slip back into the sweet, sensuous dream.

  But the cold, real world awaited her. Grant Tierney was an important part of that cold reality.

  Every eye seemed focused on them. The other couples on the floor had stopped dancing. Jimbo and Robbie had pressed slightly forward, their expressions tense and watchful.

  Jack's arms had turned granite hard around Callie, and his seething stare remained aimed at Grant.

  Grant shifted a meaningful gaze to Callie. "Does he speak for you?"

  The full impact of the situation hit her. She was caught between two violently opposing forces, and though they clashed over a simple dance, the confrontation represented much more to both of them. Her choice would grant one a public moral victory.

  Which made her a kind of trophy. Or a pawn in their game.

  The music stopped. The bandleader announced in jarringly cheerful tones, "I think we'll take a little break now, folks. We'll be back in about ten minutes with lots more music." As Freddie and his Flounders filed from the bandstand, the silence was broken only by whispers and murmurs from the watching crowd.

  Clenching her jaw, Callie looked beyond Jack, beyond Grant, and murmured to no one in particular, "Looks like I'll have to take a rain check." She broke away from the suffocating glare of attention and plunged through a jungle of shoulders and faces.

  * * *

  "Callie! Callie, wait." Frankie banged on the passenger window of the Mercedes just as Callie began to back out of the parking space. "I need to talk to you."

  Callie stopped the car, although she wasn't in the mood to talk. Her head spun and her heart ached with painful doubts. The fierce undertones of Jack's confrontation with Grant had made her feel as if she'd become a trophy in the game between them, or maybe just another bone for them to fight over.

  Frankie opened the door, slid into the passenger seat and gazed at her in patent concern. "Callie, honey, you can't just run out on us like this. You're obviously upset, but I'm not sure—" She stopped and glanced around the luxurious, aromatic leather interior. "Wow, nice car."

  "It's not mine." Callie gripped t
he wheel and stared blindly through the windshield into the evening shadows. "It's Meg's. I drive a nice, mid-sized Chevy that has never given me problems. And I live in a nice two-bedroom condo—good security, but nothing flashy. And I've been dating a nice accountant whom I've known for a month. Nothing too hot and heavy, mind you…" Her voice broke, and she squeezed her trembling lips together.

  She'd had a taste of "hot and heavy," and knew she wouldn't find it with anyone other than Jack. Nor did she want to. Passion that made her too dizzy to think belonged in the same class with flashy, high-powered cars. Not her style. More than she could afford. Potentially dangerous.

  "Why are you running away again, Cal?"

  "Running away?" She swung a protesting glance to Frankie. "You've got it backward. I'm going home where I belong. To my life. The one I built." In a whisper to herself, she added, "The one I understand."

  A troubled look shadowed Frankie's blue eyes. "Jack sent me with a message. He said to meet him."

  Callie stared at her, too choked up to respond. He was waiting for her on his boat. To take her offshore, anchor down and make love to her. I'll be waiting there, he'd whispered, no matter how long…

  She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. Even with painful suspicions digging into her heart, she still wanted to go to him.

  With a flash of clarity, she realized the god-awful truth. She was falling in love with him!

  The realization twisted her insides into knots. She'd worked too hard to grow from the unskilled, insecure, financially broke, emotionally shattered girl who'd left the Point. She'd survived both the Colonel's and Jack's emotional abandonment, and strengthened herself on all fronts to prevent ever falling prey to that pain again.

  But now that pain had come knocking on her door. She couldn't let it in!

  "Tell Jack I won't be able to make it. And tell him, also, please—" a mist sprang to her eyes and she blinked it away "—that if he cares about me at all, he won't contact me again."

  A bleak silence settled between them.

  "I'm not sure what's going on, Cal, but from what I saw on the dance floor, you definitely feel something for him. And Jack, well, I've never seen him in this state. He's usually the king of cool. Now he seems more like a powder keg."

  "Don't you understand why?"

  "Because he's crazy about you?"

  Callie shook her head, too overwrought to explain that Jack's powerful emotions stemmed more from his rivalry with Grant than from anything he felt about her, whether Jack fully realized it or not.

  He'd admitted hating the fact that she worked on Grant's behalf. The Jack Forrester she'd always known would take that as a challenge to win her over to his side for the world to see. She thought back to the first time he'd kissed her—right after his outrage over the prospect of her attending the picnic with Grant. Suddenly Jack had found her irresistible. He'd kissed her in front of Gloria, climbed onto her balcony with disregard for the neighbors, and now made a spectacle of her on the dance floor.

  You were just as much to blame, her conscience whispered. She couldn't deny that. She also had to admit the possibility that his motives stemmed from a chivalrous desire to save her from the man who had nearly destroyed his sister. On the other hand, his pursuit of her could be chalked up to just another macho showdown with his rival.

  Either way, Grant Tierney figured prominently in Jack's motivation.

  "Callie, I believe Jack needs you."

  "I don't want to hear anything more about him." She was confused enough as it was.

  "If you care about him at all, you'd better listen." Frankie's sharp tone acted almost as a slap, drawing both Callie's resentment and attention. "We've all been worried about him. He takes his work too much to heart and bottles up the emotions. Like a couple of months ago, he operated on a little boy with a spinal injury. Jack did everything he could, but the injury was too serious. The boy probably won't walk again."

  Despite her resolve to remain unaffected, sympathy squeezed Callie's heart. If she'd reacted this way from simply hearing about the boy's prognosis, she could imagine how Jack had felt.

  "Jack thinks he's learned to accept the problems he can't fix," Frankie said, "but I don't believe he has. During his free time, he seems driven to gather people around him, which he does so easily. But then he never really connects with anyone. He cuts out in the middle of parties and takes off in his boat alone."

  "He probably takes a woman with him." Callie couldn't help thinking of his suggestion to her, and the fact that he waited for her now.

  "Nope. The women are always present and accounted for."

  The stab of relief only disturbed Callie more. "What does any of that have to do with me?"

  "He connects with you, Callie. Heck, even when we were kids, you two had a special understanding of each other, and we all knew it. Now that you've come back, he's showing signs of real life again. My gosh, the way he looked at you and held you on the dance floor—"

  "The connection we've had since I've come back," Callie said, desperate to make her understand the true nature of their relationship, "is sex. Just sex."

  Her friend stared at her in surprise. "Well, that's a start."

  "That's also the end."

  Frankie released a frustrated breath and dropped her hands into her lap. "Because of Tierney's lawsuit, right?" She twisted her mouth and shook her head. "As frivolous as it is, this suit will end up hurting Jack more than the other one did."

  Callie stiffened. "The other one?"

  "The Sharon Landers case." The words had barely left her mouth when she froze, winced and shot Callie a patently regretful glance, as if she wished she could recall the words. "Y-you can't use a previous lawsuit against Jack, can you?" stuttered Frankie. "I mean, it wasn't his fault. No one even implied the error was his fault."

  Dismay washed through Callie in cold, strong currents. A previous lawsuit would certainly be pertinent to the investigation, and to withhold it from Meg would constitute a definite breach of her contract. "Don't feel bad about telling me, Frankie. I would have found out about it anyway. The computer checks I planned to run this week would have brought it to my attention." Hoping against hope, she asked through a tightened throat, "Was it a frivolous lawsuit? Something nonsensical?"

  "Well, no." After a long pause, Frankie released an unhappy sigh. "But please believe that it wasn't Jack's fault. He was one of three surgeons working on a woman after an automobile accident. While he operated on her leg, a plastic surgeon fixed her face. The chief surgeon was overseeing the whole procedure. Somehow, the anesthesiologist accidentally disconnected her breathing tube." Frankie looked out the window for a moment, then murmured, "She never regained consciousness."

  "She died?"

  Frankie nodded. "Her husband sued the hospital, along with all the doctors who had worked on her. They settled the case out of court to keep it quiet. Jack was devastated by the woman's death. He felt he should have realized that something had gone wrong. But heck, he was only in his first year of residency."

  Callie ached to think how much the death must have affected him. She ached even more to think of how he would feel if the case were brought up in court. And to know that she had submitted the information.

  "Look, Cal. I know it's your job to investigate Jack, but sometimes personal matters have to take priority over career decisions." Callie opened her mouth to argue, and Frankie held up a staying hand. "Maybe this isn't one of those times." She reached across the seat and squeezed Callie's arm. "But then again, maybe it is. Think about it, okay?"

  Callie nodded, unable to speak.

  Frankie climbed from the car and shut the door. But after she'd taken a few steps, she turned around and leaned into Callie's open window. "And please, please, don't mention the Sharon Landers lawsuit to anyone. It happened when he was working in Miami and not many people around here know about it. I only know because his mother told me. Jack still gets this bleak look in his eyes whe
n it's mentioned."

  Callie felt the bleakness herself—in the pit of her stomach. Frankie smiled rather sadly and strode away.

  As Callie shook herself out of painful reflection and reached for the button to close the window, a tall shadow separated from a nearby palm tree and ambled toward her. The light from the overhead security lamp fell across a pale, aristocratic face and gleaming black hair.

  Grant Tierney.

  He leaned his arm against the roof of her car and smiled down at her. "Just wanted to extend you my compliments. You're doing an excellent job."

  * * *

  Jack paced across the back deck of his yacht and watched the marina's softly lit walkways for Callie. Would she meet him?

  Anxiety balled up like a fist in his chest.

  She'd been upset when she'd run from the dance floor. He couldn't blame her. She'd asked for his discretion, and he'd dragged her into the spotlight, center stage.

  He gritted his teeth with painful force. He should have let Tierney dance with her. But even now, the thought of Tierney holding Callie in his arms repelled him beyond bearing.

  He'd seen too many women succumb to some incomprehensible lure of Tierney's, and land squarely under his thumb. The impulse to snatch her away from the potential danger had overruled his common sense. But it hadn't been an entirely protective instinct that had pushed him to challenge Tierney. He'd also been seized by sheer, gut-wrenching possessiveness.

  He wanted Callie for himself. She was his, made by God for him alone. He wouldn't have his enemy touching her.

  Still reeling from the volcanic force of that sentiment, Jack shut his eyes and dropped down into a chair. When the hell had he reached the conclusion that Callie belonged to him? When he'd first kissed her and knew his life wouldn't be complete without making love to her? When he'd made love to her and realized he wanted much, much more than sex? When he woke up this morning, craving her company with a profound hunger, heartsick that she'd be leaving him?

  He wasn't sure when, or even why, but he was damn sure of one thing: he'd fallen in love with her. She'd only been home for three days—three days!—yet he knew he'd never stop wanting her, or needing the uncanny bond between them that fulfilled a fierce need in his soul.